Battle of RCA Cables: Mogami, Amazon, Monoprice

[Lambda]

Coax is primarily for electrostatic fields not magnetic fields. Magnetic field cancellation is more twisted pair.

I was talking abut magnetic field interceded by the signal itself. aka the cable inductance.
for magnetic fields Coax Cancel as well a along as the fields is relatively far away and homogeneous over the cable diameter.

Most audio cables are twisted pair, even digital if AES/differential.

this is to reach a specific relatively high wave impedance of ~110 ohm or low capacitance

Even the EMI wrt ground loops is low frequency and you already have two paths normally the cable and the AC cords.

Having two paths paths creates one loop. tats the problem.
this loop over the power cord is usually relative long and high impedance compared to the short RCA cable and grund strap.

. It will not create an additional loop path w.r.t. the signal it will reduce one that is already there.

Powercord ground and RCA cable
RCA cable and Additional ground cable
Additional ground cable and Powercord ground

This are 3 obvious closed loop parts.

There is no "balancing" via a single coax. That's for external interference (when there) not for inherent currents already flowing on the wire due to an existing loop ...hence the ground loop.

Well there defiantly is in the world of RF... And also in the audio world the magnetic feeds are balancing out and therefor keeping the differential mode impedance low.

Ferrites on cables rarely contribute much in the way of differential inductance

This is the whole Point!
differential inductance should be close to 0
Common mode inductance should be as high as possible.

the imperfect centering does create some leakage inductance.

Less of an problem with Coax or "starquad"

The ratio of common mode inductance to differential would typically be 100:1. High frequency transmission wrt power and ground loops is almost exclusively common mode

Ground loop currents no matter of HF or LF is almost exclusively common mode. this is why added impedance is good.
to reduce this currents.

 

[pma]

Twisted pair cables (shielded) are excellent for balanced link connections. However total nonsense for single-ended links like RCA cables. It is easy to demonstrate on RFI pick-up and further intermodulations/rectifications in input stages. RCA link cable should have best possible shield/screen with lowest possible LF impedance.

 

[DSJR]

A lot of less expensive gear uses RCA socket 'banks' soldered to the circuit board and these fall apart easily with some of these 'tight' RCA plugs. Of course, 'proper high end' sockets are individual and firmly bolted to the chassis of the equipment being connected I never understood why WBT and similar plugs need to clamp themselves so tightly, but then, I'm a philistine these days I suppose.

Does anyone in the US use Van Damme cables? My head tells me they're actually very good (XKE and thinner Pro Patch) but my heart tells me they're too cheap and can't be any good! Audio forums are usually a bit iffy about them because they're not posh enough but if I 'turn my eyes off' I find them quite acceptable... Plenty of good third party interconnect makers selling these on eBay for twenty quid or so with neat Neutrik RCA connectors on (I think grey sounds better than black and brown colour is a warmer tone - just kidding )

 

[maty]

I like very much

Does anyone in the US use Van Damme cables? My head tells me they're actually very good (XKE and thinner Pro Patch) but my heart tells me they're too cheap and can't be any good! Audio forums are usually a bit iffy about them because they're not posh enough but if I 'turn my eyes off' I find them quite acceptable... Plenty of good third party interconnect makers selling these on eBay for twenty quid or so with neat Neutrik RCA connectors on (I think grey sounds better than black and brown colour is a warmer tone - just kidding )

I, with my modded cheap headphones. DIY with Neutrik 6.3 mm jack.

The improvement in sound was spectacular:

* I suffer a lot of RFI at home
* The original cables and jack were very bad


2014 pictures

Pro Grade Classic XKE Instrument Cable | Van-Damme

Cable is a relatively low capacitance unbalanced audio cable mainly used for guitars, keyboards and other output devices. View the full range.

www.van-damme.com

 

[audio2design]

View attachment 163798

The woven works well because it maintains the geometric center under bending and twisting.

This is also not the same as your simple 7 wire cable only using 6. That only works if the 6 are wound around a single cable at the center used as a guide/spacer. As all 7 are twisted together two sets of wires will always be offset from the geometric center.

 

[Lambda]

The woven works well because it maintains the geometric center under bending and twisting.

Show me a "woven" Star quad cabel?! they are just twisted and this works fine to maintains the geometric center.

That only works if the 6 are wound around a single cable at the center used as a guide/spacer.

And this is exactly how this cables are constructed.

the one in the center is and stays always in the center.

there is geometrically not relay a practical way to do it different without making it a much bigger outside diameter

 

[timing3435]

This is a review, measurements and comparison of a number of RCA cables from Mogami, Monorpice and Amazon Basics. The first two were kindly provided by a member. This is a subset of the cables tested:

View attachment 163572

And details of each:

• Monoprice 1.5ft Premium 2 RCA Plug/2 RCA Plug M/M 22AWG Cable - Black
  • Purchased from: Amazon.com
  • $3.28
• Monoprice 12 ft Premium 2 RCA Plug/2 RCA Plug M/M 22AWG Cable - Black
  • Purchased from: Amazon.com
  • $10.38
• Monoprice 25 ft Premium 2 RCA Plug/2 RCA Plug M/M 22AWG Cable - Black
  • Purchased from: Amazon.com
  • $11.21
• Mogami 12 ft Gold RCA to RCA Cable
  • Purchased from: B&H Photo
  • $105.90 for stereo pair (sold individually for 52.95)
• Amazon Basics Male RCA Audio Stereo cable
  • 4 feet
  • $9.85

Ranking them in feel, the Mogami Gold easily takes the top spot with supple (but thinner) cable and nice metal connectors. Next is Amazon Basics which despite its thicker cable, is still pliable and has been so since I purchased it three years ago. Last and by far the least is the Monoprice. The cable is stiff as you can get it and connectors feel horrid in hand. So does the cable for that matter. It looks a ton better in picture than when you get it in person.

RCA Cable Measurements
I set up my Audio Precision APx555 analyzer to output 2 volts and analyze the same using its high-performance analyzer. I first ran it with its internal loopback (i.e. no cable) and then with each cable connected. Here are the measurements of all the cables. None showed any change in noise spectrum, distortion, etc. (some run to run variation is there with is immaterial):

Monoprice 2865:
View attachment 163573
View attachment 163574

Notice how despite is very long length, it is still transparent.

Monoprice 2866:
View attachment 163575

View attachment 163576

Monoprice 5346:
View attachment 163577

View attachment 163578

Mogami Gold:
View attachment 163579

View attachment 163580

I did not measure the Amazon basics for this phase but having done so before, it is the same as the above. That is, completely transparent in all respects.

"EMI" Interference Measurements
Owner wanted me to test for interference since he plans to use long cables. He pointed me to an online video test where the podcaster placed a number of XLR cables over a wireless charger and a couple of power supplies and recorded different levels of noise. He bundled all the noise sources together so not clear which was the one causing the noise. Owner was kind enough to send me a wireless charger to run the same test. I did but could not find any impact whatsoever on any of the cables. My own test of using an AC transformer though was quite effective in inducing mains noise.

Note that this is an ad-hoc test. Where you position the transformer on the cable may matter. As could the length of the cable, etc. But as a quick test, it does show us something. Here is the comparison of my Amazon Basics against Mogami Gold:

View attachment 163581

Note that the vertical scale is massively enlarged. The peaks are down at -130 dB or so and would be harder to see if I kept the top at 0 dB as I normally do. Anyway, we see that the Amazon basics in blue actually outperformed the Mogami Gold! So I picked that for comparison against the Monoprice cables which turned in the worse performance:

View attachment 163582

Conclusions
All of these cables are transparent for audio. While they did pick up some noise, that happened by completely touching a power transformer. And even then, the level did not rise to audible levels (although my AP analyzer may be more immune to this noise than your audio gear). So assuming you avoid touching a transformer to your cables, electrically all three cables have bandwidth that exceeds 200 kHz, and any noise or distortion is the result of the source, not the cable.

So it comes down to feel, pricing, etc. As I mentioned earlier, I absolutely hate the Monoprice RCA cables. I had bought some before and they were identical to ones tested here: just feel nasty and cheap although I am sure you could go a lot worse. The Amazon Basics remains my personal favorite in both feel and price. The Mogami has even better feel but you pay for that in much higher cost. Its thinner cable may have worse shielding than the Amazon Basics and hence the reason it picked up a bit more noise. I use Mogami Gold for XLR cables both in my main stereo system and for testing so it is hard to go wrong with it.

I know, not very exciting . But it is good to get data behind what is a pedestrian part of our audio systems.

Overall, I am going to recommend the Amazon Basics and Mogami Gold. Stay away from Monoprice lest you demonstrate lower sensibility than I have in such matters!

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

XLR, please..

 

[audio2design]

Having two paths paths creates one loop. tats the problem.
this loop over the power cord is usually relative long and high impedance compared to the short RCA cable and grund strap.


Powercord ground and RCA cable
RCA cable and Additional ground cable
Additional ground cable and Powercord ground

This are 3 obvious closed loop parts.

I don't think you understand or at least know how most ground loops are formed in audio equipment and it's leading to the wrong conclusions.

It is typically that chassis ground connection causing the loop either directly through two pieces of equipment but not usually a third. The ground noise comes from current flowing on the ground wire in the interconnect forming a voltage that is not equivalent to the same voltage on the signal wire. Co-ax provides 0 benefit to fix that at audio analog frequencies and is not exceptional at the low digital frequencies in audio either though any competent component uses an isolated SPDIF connection so we are back to lower frequency analog and 0 benefit to coax. Even the noise frequencies from EMI bursts at line rate from things like switch modes are usually hundreds of KHz to low MHZ and that power cord loop is sufficiently low impedance to form the loop.

You can either break the loop by removing the power cord ground or using a differential transmission scheme or you can shorten the loop (electrically) so that less current flows in the signal ground. That's why a direct beefy ground strap between the equipment almost always reduces ground noise in analog audio because it reduces the differential between the two equipment grounds and reduces the current flowing in the signal ground wire.

 

[mhardy6647]

I was gifted a set of Monster Cable RCAs with the "Turbine" ends. The ends fit too securely and held on so well that upon removal they pulled out the ground from the amp. I was able to adjust the cable RCA ends to loosen the fit a tad but it was a pain in the butt with the amp ground connection damaged. Luckily I was tooled up for repairs at the time and was able to fix it.

Yup -- and it's not just the Monster "turbines", FWIW. There are other "dangerous" RCA connectors. Let's be careful out there, folks!

I have shown before, and now I'll show again, the effect of ahem interconnects like those above on a poor unsuspecting Marantz amplifier I picked up from a freebie pile at NEARC (http://www.nearc.net/ now known as NEVEC ) one day. Note the condition of the "CD" inputs.

Marantz PD25 6 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[Azathoth]

How are you all sure cables don't make a difference? Have you ever listened to audio cables? Whenever I had gotten new cables I always shove both ends straight into my ears to test them out.

 

[Lambda]

I don't think you understand or at least know how most ground loops are formed in audio equipment and it's leading to the wrong conclusions.

I'm not Talking about most and only in the context of audio equipment i'm talking about ground loops in generals.

The ground noise comes from current flowing on the ground wire in the interconnect forming a voltage that is not equivalent to the same voltage on the signal wire.

You seam to not think about induction?!

Ground loop (electricity) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Co-ax provides 0 benefit to fix that at audio analog frequencies

A Coax has geometric center for Ground and Signal in the middle
Therefor if a Voltage is introduced through induction the same voltage is introduced on the shield GND as well as on the signal wire
So GND is for example 0V + 0.5V noise
And Signal is 2V + 0.5V noise
If what ever Receives the signal has not other (low impedance) Ground reference it takes the GND from its input as reference.
And the noise Cancels out (like in a balanced system).

This works as long as Ground part and signal path are as close together as possible.
Ideally having the same geometric center.
And therefore the smallest loop area.

It is all about loop area...

 

[PeteL]

WBT like locking connectors are best and the only reliable ones if one needs to use RCA connectors. Always better to go balanced.

The best, sure probably, but the only reliable one if one needs to use seems a bit extreme no? There are plenty of hifi enthusiasts worldwide that have used something else than that reliably for their systems. I get that they are your favorite, but taking your sentence in the strict sense, what you are saying is, if you are using something else, it will fail, 100%. That obviously cannot be the case.

Now, that said. Can you recommend some cables that do use these connectors? A quick google search show me prices between 60 and 100$ for each connectors and don't easily find assembled cables. That would really suck if it was the only valid way to enjoy unbalanced audio at home reliably.

Something to keep in mind, also, and this may be just an opinion that is debatable, but I find browsing this thread that there is a large proportion of the recommendations that I read that goes in the same directions: make your own cables. It's easy, they are the best because it allows you to save cash and you can get the best parts. All variations of the same advice. I disagree with this. Learning to solder properly takes some experience. cables assembled by an industrial process, quality controlled and tested, i find in general simply more reliable when taken globally against everybody that takes a shot with the soldering Iron. I'll say, even me that had soldered more than most I'll say that my home made stuff is objectively less reliable than something done by a trusted industrial process. It really dismiss from the get go the reliability metric. The Amazon cables reviewed here may very well be more reliable than most home made cable, altough I wouldn't buy them.

I do like the Idea of crimping, Blue Jeans cable have served me well, they are not locking. They probably are not the entry price neither to get reliability, I'm sure you can get that for less, but my main point is: Assembly is even more important that the parts being used. People here talk about pulling the jacks, destroying equipment with too tight cables, etc. But really the area that fails is the assembly process, it being solder, screws or crimp. A high end cable assembled by an amateur is IMO not worth more in term of reliability than a 10$ RCA cable.

 

[audio2design]

Show me a "woven" Star quad cabel?! they are just twisted and this works fine to maintains the geometric center.

And this is exactly how this cables are constructed.

the one in the center is and stays always in the center.

there is geometrically not relay a practical way to do it different without making it a much bigger outside diameter

Kimber TC is woven, and when I get back home, I will dig up some low signal level cable I have that is also woven.

When star-quad is "twisted" it is done in such a way to maintain the geometry. There is no guarantee of that when twisting 7 all together and you end with an overall twist. Technically you would not even need the 7th wire as they should all twist around a virtual center, 7th wire or not, but they don't.

 

[audio2design]

You seam to not think about induction?!

Ground loop (electricity) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you will read carefully what I wrote, I never one defined how the ground differential was generated, only that it is there and causes current to flow in the ground signal wire creating a voltage differential that ends up as signal.

Inductive and electrostatic coupling through long parallel house wiring runs to their audio system is where many audiophile shoot themselves in the ground loop ...

A Coax has geometric center for Ground and Signal in the middle
Therefor if a Voltage is introduced through induction the same voltage is introduced on the shield GND as well as on the signal wire
So GND is for example 0V + 0.5V noise
And Signal is 2V + 0.5V noise
If what ever Receives the signal has not other (low impedance) Ground reference it takes the GND from its input as reference.
And the noise Cancels out (like in a balanced system).
This works as long as Ground part and signal path are as close together as possible.
Ideally having the same geometric center.
And therefore the smallest loop area.
It is all about loop area...

Except that only works in a homogeneous field and again, this is Audio Science Review, not RF Science Review. Running co-ax through the lab to protect from RF signals from a transmitter a few kilometers, or even a few hundred meters, away works because the field is effectively homogeneous across the cable due to the distance of the interfering source. That does not work with low level analog where the typical magnetic field you are shielding from is usually centimeters away (or less).

And this ONLY matters if the cable itself is the source of noise injection, not if it comes from somewhere else which is the case with what we define as ground loops. In terms of shielding at low frequencies, twisted pair is superior to co-ax where the interference is predominantly near field magnetic I/F.

 

[Lambda]

twisted pair is superior to co-ax where the interference is predominantly near field magnetic I/F.

Deferentially not especially if the source is small and close.

And this ONLY matters if the cable itself is the source of noise injection, not if it comes from somewhere else which is the case with what we define as ground loops.

And we are talking about cables...
If the Cable has high common mode impedance and Low differential mode impedance its better at rejecting noise in common mode.
This dose not matter if the cable or something else in the loop is the source.
It also dose not matter if the cable or something else is the source for the definition of a ground loop

Kimber TC is woven, and when I get back home, I will dig up some low signal level cable I have that is also woven.

Well This looks like some Snake oil stuff! sure it exists. But that’s not whats use in the studio or on stage or by other professionals
Also I see no Geometric advantage of doing it like this. If at all the cables are further away form there Geometric center and have bigger differential mode loop area.

 

[pma]

Kimber Kable - Carbon Interconnect

For over three decades, Kimber Kable has led the audio/video cable industry in technology and precision manufacturing. Today, we are more committed than ever to producing products of preeminent technical merit and performance. Kimber Kable International Site - Carbon Interconnect

www.kimber.com

Yes, this is a snake oil! Nothing is worse as a SE link cable.

 

[Cuniberti]

i think it might have been this video by Podcastage:

Can we assume he used Mogami Studio Quad vs the three-conductor version? Funny he doesn't mention that.

 

[Trell]

Kimber Kable - Carbon Interconnect

For over three decades, Kimber Kable has led the audio/video cable industry in technology and precision manufacturing. Today, we are more committed than ever to producing products of preeminent technical merit and performance. Kimber Kable International Site - Carbon Interconnect

www.kimber.com

Yes, this is a snake oil! Nothing is worse as a SE link cable.

Pricey headphone cables from that company…

 

[phoenixsong]

WBT like locking connectors are best and the only reliable ones if one needs to use RCA connectors. Always better to go balanced.

Eminence also has locking RCA connectors. I wonder how they compare

 

[audio2design]

Deferentially not especially if the source is small and close.

Then you are wrong as coax only rejection in a homogenous field.

And we are talking about cables...

No, you started this by replying to a comment I made about ground loops.

This dose not matter if the cable or something else in the loop is the source.
It also dose not matter if the cable or something else is the source for the definition of a ground loop

Except usually by definition of injected in a signal cable it's not referenced as a ground loop.

Well This looks like some Snake oil stuff! sure it exists. But that’s not whats use in the studio or on stage or by other professionals
Also I see no Geometric advantage of doing it like this. If at all the cables are further away form there Geometric center and have bigger differential mode loop area.

Has lowest inductance and geometrically more consistent spacing around a geographical center at any point on the cable between opposite polarity inductors. The cable I have is for very low level analog not audio work.